guard dog - not barking

Hi there and thank you for your question.

Firstly to your last question. Yes there is a problem mating brother and sister. Many congenital abnormalities will become dominant in the offspring and the risks of birth defects etc is greatly increased.

As for the problem with your dogs not barking. This can be a very hard problem to fix as dogs can go completely to the other end of the scale and just bark continuously. This can be frustrating for both you and your neighbours.

The method i recommend is below but you may never get them to a level where they will always do what you want.
The trick is to reinforce your dogs barking behaviour. This will require you to be around them as much as possible when you are home. When one of the dog barks give them a lot of praise and attention. This will teach them that barking is a good thing.

Once you have done this for a few weeks they will hopefully learn that they get praise, petting and attention for barking. Now from teaching them that barking is good you need to reinforce when barking is the right thing.

To do this you need to give them a trigger that will let them know when people come onto the property. This may be a bell on the gate or something like that. Once you have figured out what this is you need to get them used to it. Sit both your dogs near the bell, then ring the bell. If they bark praise them with attention, petting and praise. If they don't respond keep trying.

Every time the dogs bark you must reinforce this correct behaviour.
This will take a long time and you will get frustrated. But keep up with patience.

Good luck and please let me know how things go.

Kind regards

Todd Field